COLLECTIVE MADNESS
“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
Yep...
ReplyDeleteSyria is being syria...
and they have wmd and they are about to be used on each other...
Of course now that the Chinese and Russians have vetoed UN action, the movement within the media is for the Arab League or Nato to get involved. Neither of them have the fire power so the result would be another US war in the Middle East.
ReplyDeleteAs bad as Assad is, who would come next? There is no one unified group against the Assad regime. The entire country would devolve into a civil war and the US would be tempted to “keep the peace.” That may work in theory but in reality, you must take a side. We did that in Iraq and sided against with the Shiites against the Sunni and the Ba'ath party. How did that work?
Guess who are the the power elite in Syria?
You guessed it, the the Ba'ath party. They also have the support of the Russians and the Chinese. Can it get any worse?
Yes. You have Al Qaeda and Iran who surely has no interest in seeing Assad fall and helping the US keep the peace.
The US has long past lost the status of an honest power broker in the ME. We saw that in the invasion of Iraq where the Turks would not give us land access. We let Mubarack go in Egypt and to what affect? It is obvious that Iraq will be no help. It is best to leave them sort it out amongst themselves.
Iranian naval exercises scheduled for February underscore a strategy that is both political and military: To deter an attack, Iran must enhance the perception that it possesses the strength to attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz. And it needs to continually refine its own tactics, capabilities, and command and control processes in order to maintain that perception.
ReplyDelete...
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is slated to conduct naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz later this month as part of the seventh "Great Prophet" exercise, the latest in a series of exercises dating back to 2006. The IRGC has already begun ground maneuvers (Hamiyan-e Velayathave) further inland.
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Iran's overall military strategy rests on deterrence. It cannot repel a concerted, sustained air campaign conducted by the United States.
Strait Of Hormuz
Use of poison gas is next up on Assad's agenda, I read. Living up to the old man's standards.
ReplyDeleteThere is a dam there
ReplyDeleteLake Homs Dam
built back in Roman times.
Like father, like son -
ReplyDeleteOver the weekend Assad’s forces amped up the violence on Homs, thirty years after the infamous 1982 Hama massacre by his father.
Arm The Opposition
I hope Israel is supplying the nessessary means for the Kurds to free themselves from Syria, then Iraq, Iran and Turkey.
ReplyDeleteMətušélaḥ said...
ReplyDeleteI hope Israel is supplying the nessessary means for the Kurds to free themselves from Syria, then Iraq, Iran and Turkey.
that's what I have been saying!
I think that once the caged nationalities in the jihadistani empire see that not only the Jews but the Kurds too have managed to break free from the jihadistani imperialists, it will give encouragement to them and psychological momentum to do the same.
ReplyDelete